


Magnus Gets The Flu

by Humansunshine



Category: Shadowhunters (TV)
Genre: Domestic Magnus Bane/Alec Lightwood, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-03
Updated: 2018-12-03
Packaged: 2019-09-06 15:12:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,013
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16835140
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Humansunshine/pseuds/Humansunshine
Summary: When he had magic, Magnus was impervious to all human illnesses. He's never been sick a day in his 4 centuries of life... Until now.





	Magnus Gets The Flu

**Author's Note:**

  * For [softksjs](https://archiveofourown.org/users/softksjs/gifts).



> My baby is ill this week, so I wrote this to cheer him up <3
> 
> Trigger warnings: Depiction of illness including coughing, sore throats, hot flushes, etc etc. Very brief reference to drug abuse.

Alec should’ve been used to sudden wake-up calls, having grown up as a shadowhunter, but he’d been spoiled in the last few months since he’d started living with Magnus. He was awoken gently, these days, with kisses and warm, strong arms around him. 

Not today.

Today, he was awoken by urgent shaking, and a yelp of his name.

“Huh?!” Alec grunted, sitting up with his eyes half open. “Wha’? Wha’ issi?” He slurred, trying his hardest to open his eyes.

“I’ve been poisoned!” Magnus hissed, right before his body was wracked with a cough. 

Alec squeezed his eyes shut, rubbing them hard to coax them open. “What? When?!” 

“I don’t know, but my throat is burning and I-” Magnus coughed again, the sound raw and dry. 

“Lemme get you some water.” Alec rolled out of bed and stumbled to the bathroom, grabbing his glass from the nightstand as he went. “Here.” He said, rushing back in with a half-full glass.

Magnus downed the water and paused, blinking up at Alec. “Huh.”

“What?” 

“The burning’s gone.” Magnus swallowed hard, his nose wrinkling. “Sort of.” He coughed again, and his eyes widened. “It’s back!”

Alec frowned, scratching his hand through his hair. “Magnus… It sounds like you just have a cough.” 

“A cough?!” Magnus repeated. “Alexander, I am 400 years old, I know when I’m dying.”

“Oh, you’ve died before?” Alec snarked back, and Magnus scowled. “Babe, you don’t have a magical immune system anymore. You probably picked up a virus on the subway.” 

Magnus coughed again, three times in succession, his hands covering his mouth. “No, no, no mundane could survive this, it must be some kind of… Disease. Like… Throat disease.” 

He did sound a bit croaky, and Alec couldn’t help but find it cute. “Well, lucky for you, I know how to cure this particular throat disease.” 

Once Alec had made Magnus some hot water with honey in it, he seemed to realise that it really was just a common cold that he’d been infected with. He was staring down at the surface of the table, his eyes narrowed.

“So mundanes… Feel this crappy… And just…? Get on with it?” Magnus said after a few moments, looking up at Alec with something like horror on his face.

Alec smiled, propping his head up on his hand. “Well, men tend to be more dramatic about it, so don’t feel too bad.” 

“This feels terrible. My head… It’s like the time I let Lord Byron talk me into doing cocaine and opium as a double whammy.” 

“Yeah, sounds about right,” Alec agreed, pushing Magnus’ floppy hair out of his face. “You still look cute as ever, though.”

“Well of course I do,” Magnus sniffed, reaching for a tissue to cough into. “I’m Magnus Bane.”

Two days later, and Magnus didn’t look so cute anymore. 

He’d holed himself up in bed with a space heater on one side of the room and a fan on the other, and Alec had dragged the TV in to keep him occupied when he got too sick to continue his translation work. He hadn’t had the will to drag himself into the shower, his nose was all dry and red from all the tissues, and he was always tacky with sweat. He was anxious and worked up from feeling so lousy, too. New experiences made Magnus a little nervous after such a long life, and having the flu was definitely new to him. Luke had bought Magnus an Alexa last Christmas, guessing it would make adjusting to life without magic a little easier. At the time, Magnus had turned his nose up at it, but it was coming in handy now.

“Alexa, turn on the fan,” Magnus croaked, kicking off the blankets. He turned his face towards the cool air as it started to blow over the bed, and shuffled to sit up. 

He didn’t remember falling asleep. The last thing he remembered was Alec running his hands through his hair, though, so he supposed it made sense. He squinted at the clock on the wall, balking when he saw it was 3pm. A grown man should not be napping in the middle of the afternoon, he told himself, swinging his socked feet over the edge of the bed and fighting down the nausea that came from moving too fast. 

“Urghh…” He grumbled, shivering now. “Alexa,” Magnus moaned, snatching up a blanket, “turn off the fan.” 

Alec wasn’t here now, and that was a problem. He’d promised Magnus that he’d be here to look after him, and while Magnus wasn’t usually (openly) clingy, he didn’t want to be left alone while he was practically dying. Luckily for him, he didn’t have to look too far for Alec. He heard quiet humming coming from the kitchen when he padded out into the living room, clutching the blanket tighter around himself as he followed the sound.

“Oh, no,” Magnus whispered as he neared the kitchen. He couldn’t smell much with his stuffy nose, but he could just make out the edge of… Paprika?

Alec was cooking.

“Oh, you’re up!” Alec grinned, stirring a large pot that sat on the stove. “I called my Mom while you were sleeping to get the recipe for her Mom’s secret recipe spicy soup.”

“Oh… Another… Another one of your Grandma’s recipes.” Magnus said, hoping that his throatiness would hide his dread.

Alec shrugged one shoulder. “She used to make this for me when I was sick as a kid. It’ll clear your head and your nose, I promise.” 

“Wonderful,” Magnus offered, walking a little closer. His stomach turned over at the memory of Alec’s last sojourn in the kitchen, and he pressed his lips together. “Is it done?”

“Not yet,” Alex answered, putting his free arm around Magnus’ waist. “It needs to simmer for an hour.”

“So you can come back to bed?” Magnus asked hopefully, leaning into Alec’s warmth. 

Alec smiled, tapping the wooden spoon on the edge of the pot before setting it down. “Yes, I can come back to bed.” 

Magnus hummed at the news, taking Alec’s hand and pulling him back towards the bedroom. “You’re sure you can’t get sick now, right?” He checked, letting go of Alec’s hand to climb back under the covers, tugging them up to his chin. 

“One hundred percent sure,” Alec promised. “I’m using iratzes every six hours to get rid of any bugs that find their way into my system. So I can cuddle and kiss you as much as you’ll let me.” 

“Mmmm… Good. Come here,” Magnus ordered, immediately wriggling his cold toes between Alec’s calves when he got close enough. 

“Yes, boss,” Alec murmured fondly, shuffling across the bed until he was flush against his boyfriend. “Anything for you.”

Magnus smiled a little, kissing Alec gently on the lips. “I feel like shit,” he whispered, like it was a secret, and it made Alec laugh.

“Really? I never would’ve guessed.” 

“I probably stink.”

“Mmmm… I mean, I wasn’t gonna say it.”

Magnus grumbled, but Alec kissed him on the forehead between soft chuckles. “Mean.”

“If it bothered me that much, I wouldn’t be here nuzzling into your neck, now would I?” Alec pointed out, his face pressing into Magnus’ skin as he spoke. 

“True,” Magnus allowed. “How much longer?”

“About five days.”

Magnus groaned, his lower lip fattening up. Alec cooed at him. “I don’t like it.”

“I know, baby. You’ll be back to your debonair, larger than life self before you know it.” Alec assured him, “but look at it this way. You get me all to yourself for a whole week, no late nights, no emergencies. Just you and me.”

After a moment’s consideration, Magnus sighed happily, squeezing Alec a little tighter. “That is something. How did you pull it off, anyway?” 

“Left Izzy in charge. I was due holiday time,” Alec shrugged, “and besides, when have the Clave ever been able to keep me away from you, hmm?”

“I love you so much,” Magnus said quietly, looking up at Alec through his eyelashes, “but I really, really don’t wanna eat that soup.” 

Alec pouted. “But it’s good!”

Magnus grimaced. “Alexander, I adore you, more than life itself, but you also thought that trainwreck of a recipe that you tried to feed your mother tasted good.” 

“This one really does taste good,” Alec tried, “I checked with Mom.” 

“Oh…” Magnus wrinkled his nose. “Fuck. Okay, I can’t say no to you.” He went to sit up, and Alec made a noise of protest.

“Where you going?”

“To write my will, just in case your cooking kills me,” Magnus explained, and Alec growled, a grin growing across his face as he snatched up a pillow and hit Magnus in the face with it. “Hey! I’m sick, you can’t start a pillow fight.” 

Alec sniffed. “I think you’ll find you started it.” 

Magnus hummed, the croak in his voice breaking it in the middle, “fine.” He wrenched up a pillow and pushed it into Alec’s face. “I’m sorry for insulting your terrible cooking.” 

Alec laughed, catching Magnus around the waist and turning them over so he was leaning over his boyfriend. “I love you.” 

“Mmmm, I love you too,” Magnus returned, raking his fingers through Alec’s hair. “Thank you for looking after me the past couple of days, you’ve had the patience of a saint.”

“I did snap at you that one time,” Alec mumbled like he was ashamed of it, swallowing hard.

“I was being annoying.”

“Well…”

Magnus chuckled. “Alexander, I made you move the TV six times because I wasn’t comfy.”

“Yeah, alright, that was super annoying,” Alec admitted, his hands stroking up and down Magnus’ sides. “But you’re having a crisis, so I forgive you.”

“I wouldn’t call it a crisis…”

“Babe, you thought you’d been poisoned,” Alec chuckled, eyes warm with fondness as they met Magnus’.

“I’m melodramatic by nature, I was open about this from the beginning,” Magnus pointed out with a grin, “and if I remember rightly, it drew you in like a moth to a flame.” 

Alec hummed. “That wasn’t what attracted me to you.” 

“Oh?”

“Honestly? The fact that you overlooked Jace for me got me kinda hot.” Alec admitted wryly, and Magnus laughed so hard it launched him into a coughing fit. “Sorry,” Alec smiled, helping Magnus sit up. 

“That was what did it for you? Not my clever line about Michelangelo?” Magnus asked once his coughing stopped long enough for him to catch his breath. 

Alec shrugged one shoulder. “That one just made me feel inadequate. But then you winked at me and I was back in the game, so…”

“Can’t beat a good wink,” Magnus agreed, shifting around to get more comfortable. 

“What was it about me?” Alec asked. He’d always been curious as to why Magnus tried so hard with him that night. 

Magnus smiled, nostalgia warming his heart. “The elation mixed with panic on your face when I turned to look at you. It was just about the cutest thing I’d ever seen in my life. I never in a million years seriously thought anything was going to come of it, maybe a quickie in my office, if I was lucky. But then…”

“Then?” Alec prompted, eager to hear the rest.

“Then you showed up for Luke. Trusted me with your energy. And, I don’t know, when you held me after I healed him… I hadn’t been handled that gently since…” Magnus’ gaze was distant, his head shaking a little. “I couldn’t remember the last time.”

Alec squeezed him just as gently as he had that night, his lips brushing Magnus’ temple. “I love you so much, Magnus.” 

Magnus sniffed, leaning into Alec’s hold. “I love you too, Alexander.”

“Wanna watch Bake Off?” 

Magnus closed his eyes. “I really, REALLY love you.”

“And then soup.” Alec amended, reaching for the remote, and Magnus wrinkled his nose.

Annoyingly, the soup turned out to be delicious, and Alec never, ever shut up about it for the rest of their long, ever-young lives.


End file.
